I recently picked up a copy of SuSE 9.0 Professional. I have never used or been familiar with a SuSE product before as I've only used Mandrake, Red Hat, and a bit of Debian. After using Red Hat for a while I decided to evaluate SuSE and I am now sorry for not having tried it sooner.

hopefully suse will get pushed further by novell and soon begin conquering the desktop market. i think by the time longhorn comes out linux will be a very well matured and polished os for the desktop, even though it already is, but it could use some help.

SuSE's kernel sources have some sort of Makefile bug or whatnot so that any module one compiles against them won't be accepted by insmod. Instead, insmod complains of a kernel version mismatch. Why the other distros get this right and SuSE doesn't, I don't know exactly.

I guess when it comes to proprietary Linux Suse is O.K., but I'll be sticking with Fedora and Debian. I know this isn't everyones cup of tea, but if I'm going to be using proprietary software that has strings attached to it I'd just assume stick with Windows.

No need to flame about being a zealot, if Suse, Xandros, Lindows or some other flavor of proprietary Linux works for you, stick with what work for you. That doesn't make your choice less worthy then mine.

Realize though that some of us have different goals and priorities for Linux and just flat out aren't interested in seeing a future where all Linux Distros are semi-proprietary.

Depends on how accurate you want to be. Pronouncing it 'soo-suh' is close enough. If you want to be really accurate, pronouncing is 'soo-se', with the 's' between an 's' and a 'z' and the 'e' between an 'e' and a 'y'.

Read the thread I linked to. Its really very humerous. I think the conclusion they came to in the end is that its an acronym anyway, so it doesn't matter

if i read one more review about how to install a distro .. i guess i'll puke !!! has anyone read anything like how to install OS X, how to install XP:) easier or harder, u can install a system, or get someone who can do it for you. What matters is, how easy it is to install software on OS, if you have nice software to video conference, check your emails, browse net etc... hope one day we would be talkin about those instead how easy it is to install linux.

I'm really comfortable with KDE, so SUSE fits my needs nicely. SUSE keeps an updated repository of KDE builds, and the "all of KDE" install option is pretty much just that. Makes it easy to be All Things KDE.

Gnome support seems fine, though I'm less qualified to judge. I would warn folks away from installing the Ximian desktop on SUSE unless you don't mind some violence to the KDE desktop and YaST. There are work-arounds for most of the problems, but Ximian installs Nautilus shortcuts directly into the shared Desktop file and moves all of KDE's icons into a new folder. YaST doesn't appreciate all the Ximian-modified Gnome files. I'm sure all these problems will be rectified now that Ximian and SUSE are all part of the same stable.

"SuSE's kernel sources have some sort of Makefile bug or whatnot so that any module one compiles against them won't be accepted by insmod. Instead, insmod complains of a kernel version mismatch. Why the other distros get this right and SuSE doesn't, I don't know exactly."

Q: I can't build the NVIDIA kernel module, or I can build the NVIDIA
kernel module, but modprobe/insmod fails to load the module into
my kernel. What's wrong?

A: These problems are generally caused by the build using the wrong kernel
header files (ie header files for a different kernel version than
the one you are running). The convention used to be that kernel
header files should be stored in "/usr/include/linux/", but that
is deprecated in favor of "/lib/modules/`uname -r`/build/include".
The nvidia-installer should be able to determine the location on your
system; however, if you encounter a problem you can force the build
to use certain header files by using the --kernel-include-dir option.
Obviously, for this to work, you need the appropriate kernel header
files installed on your system. Consult the documentation that came
with your distribution; some distributions don't install the kernel
header files by default, or they install headers that don't coincide
properly with the kernel you are running.

(BTW, no I was not trying to build NVIDIA modules, but the problem relates to the kernel version mismatch issues with other modules, I think.)

Why was this modded down? This is a legit question that I would like to know the answer to. Anyone?

Welcome to the ever growing legions of confused, and harrased people who have unknowlingly gone against OSNews constantly changing, and obviously unpublished message terms.

Basically, despite what the terms say (The terms tend to be linked at the bottom of each thread), what's allowed is really up to the OSNews editors, and their opinions are constantly changing.

They are allowed to enter whatever form of insults and diatribe they want, in order to promote their own agendas, but as soon as you, the loyal reader post something that they disagree with (despite it being well within the punlished guidelines of the site), they reserver the right to not only mod you down, but to also delete your posts, insult your intellect, and to be downright rude to you.

But don't respond back to them in the tones or verbiage they use, as they're always right, and we're always wrong.

At least that's the opinion more and more of us are getting from their behavior. Eugenia in particular is getting a well-deserved bad rap both here and on other tech sites. In fact, Eugenia's even earning a reputation here and elsewhere for spamming and harrassing those who publicly disagree with her! She'll evidently hound you via email if you give her a legit address to do so. It's sad really...

Many loyal readers have moved on to other sites, and if you do some googling, you can see that mine is an honest appraisal of the situation, not some poorly worded, small minded individual.

I myself have written several manufacturers with examples of the double talk that passes as legit news and reviews reccomeneded that they begin sending their product to more responsible sites if they want users to get an honest opinion of their product.

How you want to respond to such behavior is up to you. I agree that your question and its response were both legit, and it's interesting that further responses about htis subject were left intact.

<shrug>

It goes to show you that you never know when it comes to OSnews... I wonder how many have taken them up on their subscription model, seeing as nothings changed on the editors behalves.

Myself... I still come here, but nowhere as often, and I usually avoid anything with Eugenias name all over it. It's typically a one-sided viewpoint, and others are not allowed to express themselves.

the biggest problem I have with SuSE in the corporate world ... is their license.

Like if it's going to cost our company - $400 for SuSE and a Windows Terminal Server License for each workstation, we might as well just go and buy Windows XP Pro for $600 which comes with the TS license ... The XP box can do more than the Linux one (ie. run native windows locally).

"Mind you, I'm not arguing, just asking..which parts of Suse are not GPL?"

YAST is not under a free as in speech license. ALL of Fedora's stuff is under a free license. Yes, YAST is under a fairly liberal license, but that's just not good enough for a lot of people. (the preceding sentence was NOT intended as a flame - I'm one of those people)

Speaking of which, I've heard that the Fedora-Config mailing list is really starting to get busy - this bodes VERY well for the future of Fedora...

Yeah SuSE is awesome.. I have 9.0 and run it along side Fedora, but I just wish SuSE would also focus more attention on GNOME. On SuSE I find KDE to be very slow where as GNOME is quick as snot on my Fedora system. 9.0 has an awesome control center. YaST2 is the sweetest thing i've seen in linux. very easy to do any updates to your system etc. I'm not bashing SuSE I think it's awesome. I just wish they would give more thought about GNOME. I'm a GNOMEr

When I first started using Linux, Red Hat was my distro of choice. I used RH for about 3 years (starting with 6.2), until I tried SuSE 8.2 earlier this year. The reason why I switched was because RH could not automatically configure my wireless network card, and so I was curious to see if some other distro could do it. To my surprise SuSE 8.2 did it with no problems. I've been using SuSE since then and I wish I had switched a lot earlier.

Also, searching for and installing packages in SuSE is so much more easier than in RH. Can you even search for a specific package in RH with the install/uninstall tool? Well, you can with YaST, and it is a great feature if you are looking for a old library file or some other mysterious package.

No preprocessor magic, no nothing. UTS_RELEASE always is set to the static value of 2.4.20-4GB. Oops.

BTW, before you say "But you should be looking in /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build/include for the header files!", I should point out that in SUSE, "/lib/modules/`uname -r`/build" is a symbolic link to /usr/src/linux-2.4.20.SuSE/. In Red Hat, the files in "/lib/modules/`uname -r`/build/include/linux" and /usr/src/linux-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl/include/linux/ happen to be the same.

Well at least you guys just got mod down, by reading stuff from /. and other forums, Eugenia is getting a bad reputation for censorship, which is too bad since I think her ideas behind OSnews are great if only a person with a cooler head and more ethics could run the site.

Actually, I can't say that for sure. But if Fedora includes XFree, then it's not all GPL. XFree isn't GPL licensed. Sorry folks.

Actually, XFree is still Free licensed. The problem with Suse is that it has a proprietary installer, not even open source according the Open Source Initiative group. Novell may one day prevent its redistribution...

i've been using dos and then windows from the early 90's and started to use linux on 1998. While i have to admit that linux has made great progress on the client side, it's still got a lot to go before even thinking of being a real trat for windows, and the new mandrake, with tese bugs, is no exception. Tbe same for suse. I still can't use my lexmark printer on it, while in windows i installed the driver with a click of the mouse.
After 12 years linux still doesnt have a rational way to install/uninstall programs and drivers with a click of the mouse (and for all the raging "linux "purists" out there: we are in 2003, not in the friging 80's...).
And please let's stop this old story about "windows insecurity": it all depends on the user: you just have to set up a good firewall, an antivirus and little else and you are done. I've never had any intrusion problems since i started using windows on the net in 1994.
Sure, the dumb user could have problems but the pc is not and will never be a domestic appliance. It will required always a bit of brain. Sorry about that but it's the reality.
So, up to now I think we have to admit that windows is still light years ahead on the desktop.

For suse 9 you can install the rpm that is produced by the installer (using a command line flag, the gui won't run) for redhat 9 (provided by lexmark). It worked for my Z34/35. You can just start printing afterward. 0 config needed.

Lexmark also provided cups drivers in a tar.gz format, built against ealier versions of glibc. Haven't tried those, but quite possible they will work as well.

I think the main "proprietary" licence in SUSE is for Yast, the excellent configuration tool (that is really at the heart of making SUSE such an easy distribution to set up). I don't have the details with me right now, but if I remember correctly the licence for it allows you to redistribute it as part of the original distribution, but if you make any modifications whatsoever then you _must_ label it as "Yast (modified)" or something similar. I'm sure this is just to clarify that they don't take any legal responsibility for works based on it, nor wish their reputation to be damaged by a possibly broken Yast that isn't labelled as being modified. It's not GPL, but I think it possibly still falls (just about) into the category of "Free Software" according to the FSF definition.

The boxed sets also contain other proprietary software that isn't available in the download edition (coming this weekend) so if you download it, you won't get these. An example is Java, which you will have to download separately from Sun's website (not the most onerous of installations).

i just upgraded Mandrake 9.1 to 9.2 and to all you anti-linux people out there it still does everything i need.
Hardware accelerated graphics, great "office" support.
Yes it has a few issues here and there, but so does Windows 2000. Try watching TV on Windows and moving files....the TV stops intermittently..
BTW that doesnt happen on BeOS ;-) and well to quote Sinead O'Connor "Nothing Compares To U" and i am sure Prince was referring to BeOS even though it hadnt been released at that time ;-)
and i am still experimenting with the Mandrake TV apps. Audio output is an issue.

i'd appreciate any comments on the better Linux TV apps out there.

As far as SuSE goes....i installed the Project Mad Hatter preview from Sun which is SuSE based and now called Sun Java Desktop as you probably already know and it is very nice.

It's due to be released in 3-4 weeks...but from what i've read it uses Gnome 2.2 and not 2.4 which is a shame considering 2.6 is not far away....but, it's supported by Sun and comes with StarOffice 7 which IMVHO kicks Cartmans and Bill Gates' arse.
cheers
peter

Hi,
I bought and installad S9.0 Personal both on my laptop (Compaq Evo N610c) and desktop (PIII with pretty common hardware).
On my laptop I have problems with winmodem (no ltmodem*.rpm around for this distro) and ACPI.
Everything's working fine on the desktop, on the other hand...

I've been very disappointed from SuSE decision not to include KPPP on Personal edition, although it is included in Prof. edition: I would expect a home user to have a grater need of a dialer than a corporate user connected to broad band!

However, if you want something more integrated to your desktop , you could try KWinTV for KDE or Zapping for GNOME. I could never make KWinTV works acceptably for me, because of PAL-M issues (I´m in Brazil) and something is always wrong with its configuration (even the CVS version, which has a new name that I forgot). This is very sad because I´m a KDE-oriented person. :-)

Zapping blends wonderfully with GNOME, although it is one of those remaining GTK1 apps along with XMMS and some others. It is very good and was my choice before TVTime.

And if you don´t like any of these, you always can use the good old XawTV.

I was raving about it a few days back, but now it's become a pain in the arse !

My experience is of a very buggy nature.

Example - logging out of Gnome and into KDE and back can often cause my one test machine to hang.

Or on another machine at my office, installing Nvidia drivers can cause a hardware lockup, always resulting in a mandatory fsck which you then have to reboot to check properly !

Frustrating !

The install is stunning, until you take a step back and realise a very important feature - services !

Where's the familiar list of services from Mandrake, Redhat or even Slackware ?

Well, I did find them in the install eventually - I ran the YaSt setup tool and found I could edit "runlevel" daemons, so I decided to enable lisa (KDE windows network browser) and the install hung - I still had CAPS LOCK operational, but nothing would escape me out.

Hard Reboot.

I really want to like this distribution - the sheer volume of software, slick install and functional desktop make it shine.

But in my experience, the shine is sometimes blinding, because frustrating bugs on the platforms I tested on were too frequent.

"No, [YaSY] emphatically does not [fall into the category of free software]. YaST cannot be sold, not at a profit anyway. Software whose binaries cannot be sold for profit is not Free Software by the FSF definition."

OK, I've just double checked on www.fsf.org for the definition of free software, and on www.suse.com for the YaST licence. It does on the face of it comply with freedoms 0-3 as defined on www.fsf.org, however you're absolutely correct that it then goes on to say that freedom 3 includes to right to charge a fee without requiring permission from the original author. The YaST license _specifically_ requires this permission from anyone wanting to charge a fee for distribution of YaST or YaST-derived works.

So I stand humbled, it's not Free Software. The reader will have to make their own decision as to whether they are willing to accept this on their systems - I am, but many would not be.

SuSE handles internet connection with their program "KInternet". When you set up your dial-up or DSL connection in YAST2, you should have a small icon of a power-cord plug on the right side of your panel. When you click on it, it will dial and connect for you.

I have tried Suse 9.0 and it continue having a lot of bugs
and configuration problems and they must upgrade the fonts,
nobody has fonts like Redhat or Fedora or Libranet. Even more Lindows has better fonts than Suse. Gnome always has
problem on Suse, they have not perfected in the same manner
as Redhat. I prefer Redhat/Fedora or Libranet ( Debian )Maybe they will become better when they merge with Novell.
The new Redhat professional workstation is much better, the
only problem is that I do not trust Redhat anymore, one day
they might stop providing network support to the RHPW and turn their back on the consumers, Suse might do the same when Novell takes over, probably Mandrake will do the same,
and their software continue having a lot of bugs. I prefer
Fedora, even that it will be in a constant beta stage, it is real open source., and they will be trying newer technology most of the time,

But still not usable by a professional. And for a non-geek who just want to correct the red eyes in his photos, Gimp is a gui nightmare. For friends who want to do photo stuff on the computer I recomment Windows, it has the better software for it.

"I guess when it comes to proprietary Linux Suse is O.K., but I'll be sticking with Fedora and Debian. I know this isn't everyones cup of tea, but if I'm going to be using proprietary software that has strings attached to it I'd just assume stick with Windows. "

In other words, you compare the GPL licensed SuSE Linux with Windows !!! Is that the Bill Gates Windows, that I have heard about?
Is this an underhanded way of starting another distro-war?

Now, come on, I'm sick of hearing this all the time.
Yes, agreed, YaST is _not_ GPL.
But, saying that it's "proprietary" or "commercial" (replace by any other "bad" word - hell, some even say it's the same as microsoft)...
Get serious for a second. Reading the license, that all seems pretty OpenSource and free to me. Not "free" as in GPL nor "FSF's free", but the only restriction I can see is that you can't resell it with a benefit.
You _can_ redistribute it for free, but you can't have others pay you for YaST, at least not more than costs for the media and such.
The other restriction is that if you make changes to YaST, SUSE wants you to send them a copy of those changes.

I guess they want to secure their distribution's most valuable asset, which in the scope of its license is really fine with me.
You get the sources, you can change it, you can redistribute it for free.

And I'd also would like to add that SUSE is great for enterprise servers as well. It is preconfigured to install Oracle, DB2, BEA Weblogic Server, SAP, and many others. It ships Sun's J2SDK. That's also very important to Linux in the server and professional business, and IMHO SUSE is a lot better than Redhat (but that only implies my very own opinion ).

I've been trying to test one of these modems for a local computer store that wants to start selling Linux installed PCs. The enclosed CD and Linux driver didn't work with Suse 8.2 or Mandrake 9.1, probably not 9.2 either, couldn't install software from CD1, although I installed from it, I was trying to get Kppp to install so I could test it.

So if you got it to work tell me how, so I can buy it, if I can't get Bit Torrent for Windows to download it to try it, as I don't know if it's in the stores here in Reno, NV.

By the way Suse 8.1 said it couldn't open "/etc/hsf/nvram.bin for writing" when I selected to have it configure it for me. Is that what happened to you? Or did Suse 9.0 have an updated driver built-in? When I checked their hardware database said it wouldn't work with it.

Hi,
Since I didn't get any answer. I went in such of the strange new world of p2p, namely Torrents. I finally found a Windows software that would work to download the Suse 9.0 and found Alcohol 120, but it didn't work. So I got CDRwin, and it didn't work either, but gave me an error in regards to the first line of the cue file. The only lines in the cue file read: FILE "SUSEL90A.BIN" BINARY" then "TRACK 01 MODE1/2352" then "INDEX 01 00:00:00". What is it suppose to say? I have it in my "D:MyTorrentsSuse..." like it was in the above mentioned text, if that helps.

I plan to buy Suse if I find out it behaves better, i.e. can install the boot loader in the partition where I put it and not in the MBR like Suse 8.1 did, my teacher lent me his disks to try. I finally found how one guy who fixed the hsflinmodem problem. He edited a file so it linked to the correct file. Is that how you did it?